Friday the 13th … oh boy. No, I’m not superstitious, but … wake up and it’s raining. It sucks to put a pop-up away in the rain. Luckily, waiting pays off, and a bit after nine the rain almost stops, so we make hay while the sun tries to shine. By the time we get done, so is the rain, so the drive will start out dry, and hopefully stay that way. I do make one rather huge mistake – there is a brace that keeps the roof from falling on you should the cables break, and I forget to take it off. I start to lower the roof but only succeed in driving that brace about four inches into the hole the support comes out of. Not good. Drive the roof back up, but the brace is pretty firmly driven into that hole, and there’s not supposed to be room for it. It doesn’t want to come out. Great. Friday the 13th. Hmmm.

There’s a cover plate that surrounds the support, and that the brace is jammed on, and I remove it. Fortunately, this gives me JUST enough free room to slowly pry out the brace. Whew! Another crisis averted!

The drive goes well, though we see a lot of this:

Yeah, and that’s before we even leave SLC!

Some miles later, we see this:

Still cloudy … maybe there really IS something to this Friday the 13th thing.

Just before we leave Utah, I’m cruising down the highway, cruise control set at 79 mph … speed limit is 75 … up ahead on a long straightaway I see a white car on the right side of the road, just sitting there. There are three cars behind me, up close, but we’re in a no-passing zone, and I’m not about to go any faster. We get closer, and YES … it’s a cop. I tap the “Coast” button twice to slow to 77, and cross my fingers … I’m not about to do anything drastic, that’s a surefire trip to a ticket. Barri says “He’s puling out, and has his lights on … is he coming for you?” to which I reply “Well, my hope is that he’d rather nail the black Mercedes for passing in a no-passing zone”. YES! That’s what he does! He nails the Mercedes and lets me go! Whew! The 13th is lucky for me so far today, but the day is not done yet. Further East, more beautiful scenery, still in Utah:

Wow. Really spectacular. The rest of the drive is fairly uneventful, all the way to the KOA. We get set up, and one of the first things I do is paint the lower part of the brace a bright fluorescent orange – maybe that will remind me. I can only hope. All set up, go inside to wrap it up, and Barri shows me a small white cylindrical object that came out from under the slide-out. Not a good sign. Have to check that out later, see if it’s what I think – one of the rollers that supports the slide-out. Got to get it fixed, but we’ll see. Not but a few minutes after that, I get more good news – no 110 inside. All the outlets are dead … except for the one for the air conditioner. Hmmm. Well, long story short, for some reason the Ground Fault Interruptor got tripped, reset it and all is well. Whew.

Later, dinner, and watch TV. Unless we get struck by lightning or carried away by a flood, we should be golden for the rest of the day. An ok Friday the 13th.

I did forget to mention something in SLC. Look at this photo:

I can only imagine the guys at the KOA wondering among themselves: “I wonder why no one uses the hand drier, they all use paper towels”. I wonder why, indeed.

Got up sort of early, don’t like arriving too late. We’re getting pretty good at packing things up, so we were on the road mid-morning. Of course, as soon as we got into Utah, it started to rain. Like this:

Gotta love it. And the forecast is for nothing but rain. Lovely.

We get in not long after noon, and are given a site probably fifty feet from the bathroom. Cool! It’s smaller than it’s supposed to be (when they hear “pop-up” they cannot fathom a 33-foot behemoth. At that point in the conversation we ask them to look outside … gasps, and ohs, and “we’d better get you a bigger site”). But this one is big enough, so we’ll make do. I like being close to the bathroom. When you get older, it makes a difference!

Alright. Rained out of cycling. Let’s go get more stuff for the trailer! We’re looking for supports for the slide-out (without them, every time you sit down the table shakes – not good), and my fingers do the walking through the local RV dealers, where I find just what we’re looking for. Off we go, to Motor Sports Land, where Ray has put a support kit on hold for me. Ray’s a kid, but very energetic and very knowledgeable, and VERY eager to help, so we hit him with many, many questions. It happens this place is a Starcraft dealership, so he’s going to try to get some information for us on how this Beast is supposed to be plumbed. Oh yeah – did I forget to mention that? The Beast came from the factory with a 35 gallon fresh-water tank and a 23 gallon grey-water tank. Well, evidently the previous owner was not as preoccupied with grey water as he was with fresh water, so he converted the grey-water tank into a fresh-water tank. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing – matter of fact, it appeals to me, as it will allow remote-areas camping for longer periods of time. The problem is that in the process he ripped out all vestiges of prior plumbing for the grey-water. In other words, the shower just dumps straight down, and the kitchen sink flows down and then pipes over to the left side, and then dumps down just in front of the wheels. Not cool. I’m going to leave both tanks as fresh-water, but need to make a way to tie the sink and the shower together, so that I can collect all the grey water into one tank. Ok, enough about that.

Salt Lake City is interesting. Well, the cities in Idaho were interesting for the same reason. They like to name their streets with numbers. Like 100 street, or 3000 street. But it’s actually more interesting than that – we have things like East 10th North Street. That’s where we stayed in Mountain Home. Confuses the HELL out of the GPS! And Salt Lake City has East North Temple street, South West Temple street, and even West South Temple street. But there’s no East Temple street, neither North nor South, as that is Main street. Are you confused yet? Me too.

So that was our arrival at SLC.

There WAS one more interesting thing … Utah is full of Mormons, but also has at least one moron, and I have photographic proof:

Yup! Only a moron would take a perfectly good Porsche Turbo Carrera and put a wing on the whale-tail. Not only that, but if you look closely, it’s barely attached! I’m not sure that wing won’t collapse if you get that car upwards of 100 mph. Idiot. But that’s just my opinion. I hate to see a nice car messed with like that.

Today was a travel day. Hated to leave McCall, but had to move on. On the way, we stopped by Eagle, Idaho (outside of Boise) to check out their BMX/mountain biking park. Very cool! If I can get a good wifi connection, I’ll post some photos.

That’s one complaint I do have about Idaho – I have yet to find a decent internet connection.

Ok, we’ll give it a shot. Here’s an overview of the left side of the park as you drive in:

These are all just mountain biking trails. Here’s a shot of the right side:

Still mostly MB trails. On the far right you can kind of see the BMX area, so here’s a smaller pano of that:

Not my thing, but I can appreciate how nice this would be for those who do care for it – that is one well-made track!

While in such a big parking lot, I took the opportunity for a couple of shots of Junior pulling The Beast:

And a sideways shot:

After this, we continued our trek down to Twin Falls, and got there early afternoon. Went in to town to check things out, get a few things, and discovered some really spectacular scenery! Ok, first of all, when you leave Boise and head East-SouthEast towards Twin Falls, you’d think you were driving through West Texas – fairly flat, very sandy scenery. I guess it’s very reminiscent of being outside of Amarillo, except there are really no trees here, just scrub brush … and then … all of a sudden … it’s like discovering Palo Duro State Park, that just drops down into gorgeous. Here, you get off I-84, head South on Idaho 93 to go into town, and as you go over the Perrine Bridge into town, the Snake river has cut a huge gorge and created this:

And coincidentally, this is very near the spot where, in 1974, Evel Knievel “tried” to jump the Grand Canyon. I’ll get a shot of that area tomorrow, maybe. This is Perrine Bridge, famous for a couple of things. First, when built it was the tallest bridge of its kind, at 486 feet above the river below, and second, it is the only bridge – in the U.S., at least – to allow BASE jumping year-round. There were some folks jumping today, and I kind of got them with the phone. If you click the photo, it should show you a much bigger one where you can actually see them:

You can see the first jumper just below the curve, at mid-bridge.

Here, you can see the first jumper in the shadow of the bridge, and the second where the first one was last shot.

And finally, you can see both jumpers in the shadow of the bridge, and their shadows on the river below. I’ll get back out here tomorrow with a real camera and hopefully someone will be jumping again. Evidently someone jumps pretty much every day. Kinda cool, but I’ll pass.

Alright! Today we leave the heat! Did not get a super-early start, because it’s a relatively short drive – only about 150 miles. Piece of cake! Well, once we get going. The problem is, it rained last night, and it rains when we wake up. Have you ever camped out and had to put away the tent in the rain? Yeah, except this is a GIGANTIC tent. But it’s still wet. Checkout time is eleven, so we can’t dilly-dally too much.

Short drive – true. Scenic drive – s l o w . Takes almost three hours, but the scenery is outstanding! Here are some shots of the drive:

A bit further down the road, we get this:

And even closer to McCall, we get this one:

And yes, it was still raining on the drive up. The curse is fully active!

Finally, we get to McCall, and head for Ponderosa State Park, where we’ll make our new home for the next few days. There is supposed to be a LOT of riding in this area, so hopefully we can make the most of it. After we check in, looking for our site, I see this:

It has been several decades since I’ve seen one of those! A VW Thing. Cool!

We get camp set up and head to town to check things out, then drive out a ways to see what there is. There is the lake (of course!), and a peninsula that pokes out into it, so I get a couple of shots of it. Here’s a panoramic view of the lake from the road North:

That peninsula looks kind of weird, so I get a close-up:

That’s basalt on that hillside. Old lava flows from at least yesterday (or maybe a few thousand years ago, I’m not really sure). I’ll try to get a closer look when I can.

We get some supplies in town, and head back to camp. Shower time! By the way, this park is BEAUTIFUL. Well, the RV section is, at least. Brand new driveways, perfectly paved, perfectly level, full hookups. Wow! Big bathrooms, clean, REALLY nice – ok, for a State Park. No soap at the sinks, though, which is a bummer. And big showers, too – individual rooms. Nice. So I go in to take a shower … ok, the showerhead is basically a pipe with a 1/8-inch hole on the end, where the water “sprays” from. It’s a pretty potent stream, feels like it’s coming out at 300 psi. Ok, I know it’s only probably 80 psi or so, but that teeny tiny stream just flat blasts the top few layers of your skin right off! AND, you need to run around in circles just to get yourself all wet. When the stream hits my neck, it almost makes the muscles cramp. It feels lie a deep-tissue massage, done by an old-time (1960s) East German masseuse who just slammed her fifth consecutive Red Bull since I walked in. In other words, it hurts! But it’s warm, and I’m clean. Boy, you’d better watch where that stream hits you, though, at least if you ever hope to have children in the future. Vasectomy? Nah, this thing will give you a nut-ectomy if you’re not careful!

Well, today is once again moving day. Leaving Arco to head further West, close to Boise. We would have camped at Boise, but the KoA was full – they’re having an MS ride this weekend, so no camping there!

The drive was not too bad, and … a miracle! Did I forget to mention it rained last night? Yeah, it rained, and that rain washed away the smoke in the air! Today you can see the mountains clear as a bell! Wonderful! THIS is what the scenery should look like!

We got into Mountain Home without incident, but … no folks at the KoA office. We’ve run into this before during the day at some, but usually when they leave it empty, if you have a reservation, they leave paperwork letting you know what your slot is, so you can occupy it. Usually. Not today. Ok, fine, they’re due back in less than three hours, let’s go kill some time. Lunch!

We go into town a bit, to a place we saw on the way in – the Jade Palace. Chinese food – it’s been over a month, and I’m ready for some! By our good fortune, the food is really, REALLY good, and we eat our fill, then head to WalMart to kill more time. Even that doesn’t do it, so we head back early, to wait by the office. We wait … and wait … and finally I make an executive decision – we will occupy one of the identified empty spots – they did leave THAT information for incoming campers (but not for pre-paid registered campers? I’m confused …). We set up, and then, we head for Boise, as Sonny wants to return some stuff and buy some stuff at Best Buy. Off we go!

Get that done, then some other shopping, and it’s dinner time! Nice dinner at Chili’s, and then it’s time … when we … lose Sonny.

No, I don’t mean he got lost like The Bear did the other day, he’s actually got an uncanny sense of direction – I don’t think he could EVER get lost! No we lost him … WAIT!! Don’t go there! I’m sorry – he didn’t die, no we didn’t lose him in THAT way. Let me rephrase – Sonny left us. I mean like the song “Leaving, on a jet plane” … THAT kind of “we lost Sonny”. He decided to return to Mexico early. Well, I can’t blame him, the riding situation is unclear at this time, because of the fires. We had wanted to go to Sun Valley, but it burned up, as did Ketchum, so no riding there, and we’re not sure what the situation is in Boise, and it’s all getting to be desert riding anyway, which isn’t quite his cup of tea, so he left early. No, he’s fine, just gone. We’ll miss him, it’s been a lot of fun having him, which I knew it would be, is why I invited him! I hope your friends enjoy the videos and photos  you took! Should be pretty spectacular stuff.

Today, I also find a problem with the trailer – the right tire (you remember – the one that ceased to be!) is almost completely bald! No, this is not an Adrian joke, the tire has almost no tread left, and the left one looks pretty much fine. These tires were new just over a month ago, and now one’s BALD? Houston, we have a problem! We have to get this checked out tomorrow.

But for tonight – we sleep!

Up EARLY today (6:00 am – that IS early!), because we have a long way to go. We are headed for Salmon, Idaho. Gonna ride some trails on Discovery Hill.

The drive was two and a half hours for only about 112 miles, and the first half is pretty much all 65, so you get an idea how twisty the road gets the closer you get to Salmon. But we made it in before 10, and headed for the bike shop. Actually, it’s a bike shop/pizza place! And they have beer! We’ve hit a freakin’ trifecta! And they don’t open until noon.

Ok, fine, no directions, but we have a booklet we got from the BLM (Bureau of Land Management for those who do not know) the other day, and it has great directions. Off we go to start our ride! Basically out there they have an out-and-back on a road, but it looks super-steep, so we’re not gonna try that one. The rest of it is four loops that share the first mile or so, and then some bits from each other. There’s a green loop, a blue loop, an orange loop, and a red loop. Total about 20 miles or so. Maybe. I mean, maybe we’ll get it all done … I’m not betting on it! We start riding pretty much straight up ten o’clock, and decide to go for the green loop, no particular reason. It goes pretty well, has a few long climbs, and a few steep parts but we manage ok. When we finish, The Bear suggests returning for pizza, and I’m ready to second, but it’s only eleven, so … we’re not waiting in a parked truck. Might as well do another loop, and this time we choose the blue one. Why? Well, the orange is called the “Enduro Loop”, and the name sounds like endurance, and an endurance ride is not what I have in mind. The red loop? That’s the long one, and it just looks hard on the map. I mean, it’s RED. So’s blood, and I don’t want to see any of that today. Besides, blue is for sky, and that’s peaceful, so let’s go that route. Literally. Of course, it shares the steepest hill on the green loop. Of course. Alright, hopes are high, we trudge on. Turns out that was not the steepest climb on the blue loop. There are two others MUCH steeper, but thankfully, pretty short, comparatively speaking. We manage. The downhills are sweet, so, you know, this blue is not too bad! Gets us out on a dirt double-track (that’s almost a road), climbing, of course. At the top, where does it go? DOWN. No, actually, I mean !!DOWN!!. Jeez, it feels like we’re descending a wall, and I thank the bike gods I had the foresight to buy that collapsable seat post a couple weeks ago! Otherwise, I’d be walking this beast! I was tempted anyway, except I couldn’t stop!

Down we go, around some more, and finally, close to the end where it meets up with the first part of the trail they all have in common, we decide we’ve had enough, and it’s time for pizza and beer. You don’t have to tell me twice! At the end of a ride, I’m like a horse that suddenly realizes you’re heading back to the barn – stand aside Martha, I’m comin’ home! I took off, and even Sonny seemed to have trouble keeping up! Ok, not really, but he let me think so – nice of him!

And we lost The Bear. Ok, WE didn’t lose her, but we didn’t help her not get lost, so she got lost. Not sure where she took a wrong turn (I’d been waiting at appropriate points along the route, always getting told “What are you waiting for? I don’t need your help. I’m a big girl”). Yeah. so I went on, because it was close to the end, and I figured there was no way to miss the trail. Ok, guys – don’t ever fall for that line. Just keep waiting at the appropriate spots all through the ride. Believe me, it’s better to get bitched at for waiting that to catch hell because the spousal unit got lost. TRUST ME ON THIS.

No, we didn’t have to call the National Guard, The Bear eventually figured out how to get back to the truck, and everything ended fairly well. Yes, I DID go out to look for her, but in the truck, and then returned, figuring if she showed up and the truck was missing, I’d REALLY catch hell. There was some polite discussion about getting lost and being helpful, though there was a hell of a lot more … well … it all worked out ok, so let’s not dwell on that. Time for beer and pizza!

Sonny had ridden ahead, and when we showed up, he had not been there that long, so he was not aware there had been any issues, which was just as well. I took NO pictures of the trail (silly me), but will try to steal some from his video. Anyway. At the pizza place, simple menu:

I had the Ajax, then a Firehouse, but the Ajax was so good, I had two more! This place is great! The pizzas are square, about 18 inches or so, and they cut them into eighths. Slices of the herb and cheese were $2.36! The Ajax – the most loaded of any of them – was still under $3.00 a slice! And Guinness in the bottle was only $3.30! I think we made it to heaven!

This is a crappy picture, but here is the Ajax:

Delicious!

Alright, after that we headed back, stopping by the big submarine conning tower that adorns a park in town:

Nuclear sub, nuclear powered city … you get the idea.

Also, there is a kind of cool thing outside of town, actually very prominent from all over town, and it’s called Number Hill. Here is the sign:

I’ll shoot a photo of the hill tomorrow and post it then. Ok, here’s the photo of the hill itself:

Ok, that was it! Tomorrow, we leave for Mountain Home, outside of Boise, to see what the biking is like surrounding Boise. Oh, yeah, almost forgot – we got some rain on the drive back, and got some also tonight, which looked to be scattered all over the state, so here’s hoping this smothered out a few fires, or at least helped put out some of them. We shall see!

Today, a little sight-seeing, a little riding. Ok, mostly sight-seeing, very little riding! Tomorrow we should make up for the little riding.

I wanted to go see EBR-1, which is what Arco is famous for. EBR-1 stands for Experimental Breeder Reactor 1. Arco was the very first city on the planet to be illuminated with nuclear power. Ok, that’s not really true – Hiroshima, Japan was actually the first city to be illuminated with nuclear power. What I meant is that Arco was the first city to be illuminated with ELECTRICITY produced by nuclear power. BIG difference. Here is the building that houses it:

Pretty non-descript, and it’s out there all by itself. Some pretty cool stuff inside, and they do let you take pictures. Here’s one of the control room:

I have many more, but that’s enough, trust me!

Standing outside, I noticed the smoke is worse today, as seen here:

You can barely see the mountains!

After this, lunch, then off to Mackay, ID to check out their mine, as we should be able to ride part of the roads out there, and hopefully there will be some challenge to them, and they’ll be interesting.

Well, the mine was interesting, here is a photo:

And here is the town of Mackay, Waaaayyy down there:

Quite a ways up, interesting stuff, but the ride was a bit of a disappointment. The climb was tough enough, and the scenery was spectacular, but it was a short ride. Worth the trip, though.

And just to wrap it up, here’s a tree in our campground, just because I think it looks neat. If I were to desaturate it, it would look a lot like an infrared photo:

See? Cool looking tree!

Ok, up kinda early, and buy breakfast at the KoA, so we don’t have the hassle of making it or cleaning up. Sounds like a good idea … but I’m kinda miffed. They charge you $7.50 for this, and most of it is fine – two large pancakes that do taste very good, THREE slices of bacon, thick cut, also very good … but when we get to the scrambled eggs … ok, are eggs REALLY so expensive that they have to dole out only a tablespoon? I’d think the eggs were the cheapest part of this meal, so come on, give me TWO tablespoons!

These guys have almost totally soured me on KoA, especially with the WiFi thing. Yeah, THAT thing – WiFi that DOES NOT WORK. I thought it was only crashing when I tried to upload photos, but The Bear tells me it dumped her twice when she – get this! – was trying to make reservations on the KoA site! They don’t even want you to give them your money! Idiots. FIX IT! I bitched, and they say “they’re working on it”. Yeah. Sure.

And another thing – the toilet paper here … I thought Gossamer wings were thin. They’re two-by-fours compared to this stuff! Argh! You know, if they made a commercial for it, they should use a song by the Doors for it – “Break on Through (To the Other Side)”. Thank god we leave today.

Anyway, we get packed up and loaded, and off we go … in the wrong direction. It’s ok! We’re actually doing it on purpose! We want to go back by the ranger station to get some maps – surely the lady with the key to the map cabinet is in today (she wasn’t on Friday when we last stopped by). No. She’s not. But the ones who were there were glad to see us, and glad to hear our tales of woe from the ride yesterday … or maybe just glad to see we had not been eaten by bears … piles of paperwork if that happens, you know. And then they have to give the bear an enema, and THAT is hard work! They don’t seem to like you messing around back there …

Anyway, they tell us there’s a ranger station “just the other side of the border with Idaho, maybe 20 minutes away”. Yeah … no. Ok, it was only like 30 minutes, but we kept worrying we’d missed it. Stopped for a map, and got the really sad news – fires in Idaho. Lots of fires in Idaho, and mostly where we want to ride. Really? The rain didn’t stop us, so now you try fire? REALLY?

Yes, each of those orange dots is a fire – ten in Idaho, three in Montana. Well, our first stop is in Arco, about a third of the way in from the right side of the state, about as far up from the bottom as it is from the right, so no fires there, but not much riding either … it’s all a good 50 or more miles away, either towards the fire, or towards bear country. I thought we were done with the bears for a while, but I guess not! Grrrr.

Ok, so we drive on, and see this:

Can you see the mountains in the distance? OF COURSE YOU CAN’T! THEY’RE COVERED IN SMOKE! Really? I could cry.

But I don’t – we go on into Arco and check out this booming metropolis. One square mile of town, but it’s famous! Here is why:

Seems no matter where you go, some jackass has to put graffiti on it. There’s also a submarine conning tower here with a torpedo next to it, maybe tomorrow we’ll find out why. Lunch is a burger (an Atomic Burger!), and dinner is sandwiches. Tomorrow? Craters of the Moon!

Today, we sightsee! Hit the local bike shop, a little bitty thing that’s also a coffee shop, and get a trail map. Not a lot of trails, but there are some, and we’ll hit them tomorrow.

Today, we go to Yellowstone National Park, to do the South Loop. We leave mid-morning, thinking it gives us plenty of time, after all, it’s only about a hundred miles, or so. “A three hour tour, a three hour tour…”

Things seem to NEVER go according to plan for us, and today is no exception. We start on the south loop, go see Old Faithful, wait for him to go off … last minute, the wind shifted and picked up, though luckily not in our direction! People to our right got a bit of a damper put on their party, but the rest of us had a good time! Here is OF in all his majesty, such as it was:

ARGH!!!!!!

I HATE KOA    I HATE KOA    I HATE KOA

I’ve been working on this post for two hours now!!!!!

“Oh, we have WiFi!!!”

NO, YOU DON’T.      Not WORKING WiFi, anyway.

THIS is why I’m three days behind on this blog. It takes hours just to upload the tiny photos I post. Even the text updates take forever. CONSTANT time-outs. EVERY KOA has had issues, but THIS ONE (West Yellowstone) is THE WORST!!!

Ok, rant over, for now. Started this at 8:)0 this evening, it’s now 11:00, and working ok. Here’s Old Faithful (kind of ironic …):

Hard to get a sense of scale. Wasn’t very impressive, but I blame the wind.

Of course, as we got further down the road, we thought – hey, maybe we should go to Grand Teton! It’s “just down the road” … then maybe head over to Driggs, ID, since it’s supposed to be some killer riding in that area … it’s “just down the road” as well. Ok, found no bike shop in Driggs, but saw one in Victor and stopped in. Very helpful guy there, pointed us to some local trails and sold us a map, also pointed us to a BBQ place, Big Hole BBQ. Had not had lunch, so that was quite welcome! At last, we headed for home – but first, into this:

Yes. It’s rain. Again.

We get home late, and pretty much just slug off to bed.

Travel day! You know the drill – get up early, eat, get pack … NO. No, not today. Sleep in a little bit, then eat, then get packed up and headed out. No rush today. Only about a five hour drive or so, with lunch.

And then, as we get close to Yellowstone, the curse returns! No, no, not THAT curse! Jeez, The Bear is post-menopausal for crying out loud! No, the RAIN curse! kinda like this:

Rain, rain, rain. At least it’s on a travel day.

Here’s another shot of the storms later in the day:

Yeah, I think it’s lovely!

Oh, yeah, there IS another thing … when you travel, you often have to go to the bathroom. I had an interesting experience at a rest stop. I walked in, and was confronted by this, except someone was blocking my view of the rightmost fixture, so all I saw were the left two. I was confused for a moment … I’ve seen some weird-looking urinals in my day, around the world, so this threw me for a bit. Fortunately, I paused long enough that the person left, and I could see that I almost made a very embarrassing mistake! Hey! It could happen to anyone! And I said ALMOST. I didn’t. Whew!

Ok, so speaking of bathrooms … do they not teach hygiene in school any more? One thing I’ve noticed most the further West we go – guys don’t tend to wash their hands after using the restroom. The Bear started noticing the same thing in the women’s restrooms after I commented on it. I mean that the women don’t tend to wash up either. One scary moment (lucky for me I did not see who it was … or maybe unluckily) was when I heard a guy flush the toilet (I was likewise occupied), and then he quickly exited, immediately turned on the hand dryer, and then left. Yeah, you got it right – never turned on the water to wash his hands, just dried them. Ok, so I’m thinking, he needed to dry his hands … because they were wet or damp … from … using the toilet … but he did not feel the need to wash, just to dry …

Sometimes (MOST times), after I wash my hands in a public restroom, even if I only went in to just wash my hands, I will hope and pray they have paper towels, so I can use one to turn the knob on the way out, because you never know what disgusting things the previous person did in there, to that poor knob. Yuck!

Anyway …